Originally Posted by
StartinSanDiego
I had lunch today with a Kiwi friend. She is a dual citizen, but was quite upset about the situation with the quarantine.
She told me of the serious plight of expats trying to return home when they can't get an MIQ booking and they are overstaying/violating their visa dates in the host countries. Apparently some are ending up in a terrible limbo because of the backlog of MIQ slots. They're stranded in places like airport hotels, awaiting their MIQ confirmation. The sentiment is that if quarantine is mandatory, the slots should be easily and timely obtained.
They've got a petition going:
Grounded Kiwis
People from AU used to occupy ~40% of slots. When the AU bubble opened up (April) not all went back in the pool. That was a NZ govt announcement.
Then policy changed so a MIQ hotel only takes people for 96hrs. Even when there are spare slots they went/are unused.
At the this time more slots are being allocated to people from Au (bubble paused) and people returning from the Olympics
In May-June there were unused slots. With delta variant increasing demand has jumped since then
Petition will achieve nothing. Will not make more MIQ rooms suddenly appear.
https://allocation.miq.govt.nz/portal/
Edit
Dwindling MIQ room supply as govt increases its own allocation
<snip>
The government has taken a larger allocation of the available MIQ spaces, increasing to 500 from 300 places a fortnight it takes for its own projects and policies this year. And public health advice on separating out returnees is expected to lead to a 15 percent fall in supply.
<snip>